Issaquah board reviews budget outlook as fund balance falls and enrollment declines

Issaquah School District finance staff presented a 2024–25 financial update and options for the 2026–27 budget development guidelines during the Nov. 13 meeting.

Staff said the district began 2024–25 with roughly $52.1 million in the bank and ended the year with an actual ending fund balance of about $45.9 million after planned investments, a difference of under $400,000 from the prior projection. The presentation noted a planned drawdown of roughly $6.2 million for 2024–25 and showed the unreserved fund balance at about 4.5% of expenditures — inside the board’s 3–7% target range.

“we began with $52,100,000 in the bank,” Executive Director of Finance Mariah Banasic said during the presentation. Staff warned of continued enrollment declines — the largest single‑year drop since the pandemic, nearly 560 students in 2025/26 — and recommended reducing the $20 million reserved for future school facilities to $10 million to preserve more flexible unreserved funds.

Several directors pushed back, saying they prefer to retain the full $20 million reservation because uncertainty around construction timing and project costs creates risk; others favored saving more unreserved funds to keep the district above a 3% unreserved threshold. The board asked staff to continue updates and to provide a spring projection and an implementation plan for any reserve changes. No final budget action was taken; staff offered to return with revised guidelines and a timeline for adoption in February.